


happy as a sand boy

by rkvian



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Miraith Centric, Pre-Relationship, Prompt Fill, WRAITH'S NAME WAS REVEALED (and it's a few weeks old at this point)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 15:11:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21056465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rkvian/pseuds/rkvian
Summary: There are a lot of weird ways to spend early morning on New Dawn. Mirage just never thought catching Wraith baking will be among them.





	happy as a sand boy

**Author's Note:**

> fill for missscatter's prompt list on tumblr, including  
-baking a cake  
-dorks in love  
-Wraith laughing  
-Mirage seeing Wraith with her hair down for the first time  
-though idk if this counts as wrestling and late night nightmare discussions  
-also a smol nifty headcanon to tie a bow on the fic
> 
> i wrote this story to Matthew Mole's Take Yours, I'll Take Mine :)

“What are you doing?”

Her whole body jumped, and Mirage winced at a loud metal clatter followed by a splat ringing across the empty kitchen. Wraith stood in front of the counter frozen, staring at whatever horror became of his interruption.

Part of him wanted to apologize immediately because _what the heck? _Did that just happen? Did he just surprise Wraith-could-avoid-sniper-bullets-from-three-hundred-meters-away? The other part of him wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation because, well, maybe he’s still asleep? It is 4 in the morning after all, and that seemed to be the best explanation of what just happened

Until he spotted a ladle flying towards him, instinctively making him duck and bump his head directly into the island table in front of him.

“Ow!”

“You deserved that.”

“_No, I didn’t_. Thought you heard me, I said your name twice coming in.”

The glare she’s giving him turned deadly at his answer, but she’d look more terrifying if she wasn’t…you know, red from her cheeks to the tip of her ears, dark sweater covered in flour and batter and smelling distinctively cocoa.

He rubbed his palm against his forehead, taking a quick survey across the assortment of used pots, pans, and trays before _it clicks_.

“You’re baking.”

The disbelief made her lips curl into a grimace. “What of it?”

“I—wh—uh—you’re actually _baking_?”

“No, Mirage, I’m mixing eggs and flour and hoping it suddenly turns edible.” She crossed her arms, stance guarded but there is apprehension in her eyes.

“Do you have a cooked batch? Can I have some?”

“No.”

“No you don’t have any, or no I can’t?”

“Look,” Exasperated she began, “I know you think you’re funny and I admit it has its moments, but I have to get this done perfectly in about—” her eyes darted at the wall clock above the kitchen door heading to the Mess Hall, “—an hour or so.”

Mirage shrugged, “So let me help.”

“What?” Her brows furrowed, apprehension giving away to suspicion. "Why?"

“This seems important." He dropped his palms on the table and nodded, “So I wanna help.”

She’s considering it. He can see the gears in her mind twist and turn, eyes shooting between the spilled batter on the counter and the mess she’s made on the table.

“Alright.”

Still he blinked in surprise. “Really?”

“Yes.” She turned her head away, picking up and handing him a piece of paper from the other end of the island table. “Here.”

The paper had Lifeline’s unruly handwriting all over it, mixed with what must be Wattson’s from several French words crossed over and replaced with common. It’s a list of ingredients and instructions, the margins doodled over by design.

“Mirage?”

“Yeah?” He answered automatically, looking back up and finding her holding a clean mixing bowl and a measuring cup. “Right. You need flour. A cup and three-quarters.”

* * *

It’s amusing to watch Wraith focus on something other than lining up her shot. Her eyes still narrow, jaw still clenching, but this time, it’s over trying to perfect adding sifted ingredients on a mixture of butter, eggs, and sugar. Cocoa follows shortly after, and he inhaled the wafting scent as she began mixing the batter with a spatula.

"Stop staring."

"Can't help it. I didn’t know you had hands.”

He grinned toothily at the exasperation on her face, tapping her spatula against the tip of the bowl before mixing it again. He turned back to his share of work, stirring the pot of several melting chunks of butter over low heat.

“You’re walking around thinking I had no hands?”

“How was I supposed to know whether or not you had robotic ones?” He muttered with a shrug.

Wraith raised an eyebrow, lips quirking into a smirk, “Is that you finally admitting I have a better aim?”

“Ha, no.” He turned on his heels, pointing his spatula towards her direction. “Definitely not. Did you even see the leaderboards Wraith? I had the highest damage last Game.”

“And I was the kill leader.”

“Only because you’re great at stealing kills.”

“I was securing them. Maybe we should have a spar later just to see which one is th—_stop_ _eating the chocolates_!”

Wraith lunged at the bowl he raised above his head, “I only took one!”

“One plus two others.” She hopped, actually just _hopped_ to reach the bowl he’s now standing on the tip of his toe for, and his mind went _what the fuck_. He let her have it because _that was fucking cute_, watching her pour all of it and leave the container on the table. “Don't let it burn."

"Aye, aye." He does, mixing the fudge thoroughly.

"So, did you have a bad dream again?"

The suddenness of the question sent a jolt through his stomach.

“W-what? Of course nn—of course—"

Mirage sighed, his shoulders dropping.

If there is one curious thing about their relationship, it’s exactly this: she has always been good at stripping away who Mirage is. Mirage would never walk into a kitchen and offer to help anything. Mirage would quip something borderline insulting, have her rolling her eyes or telling him to leave. But as cliché as it sounded, he...never really felt the need to pretend when it's around her. He could act as silly or as fucking stupid as he wanted, and she still looked at him the same.

"Yeah."

She nodded, "What was it about?"

He stared at her incredulously, "You're seriously interested?"

"Only if you want to talk about it."

"Well, I mean, it's not _that_ bad of a dream." He rubbed a finger against his cheeks, observing Wraith pour the cake batter into a square pan and slid the container into the oven. "Just an uncomf—uncomfie one."

"Was it about being unable to find your comb?"

He shrugged a shoulder, "Couldn't find my styling cream. Dreamt I had to go into the ring with my hair like a bird nest."

She snorted. "The horror."

"You're saying that now but you got shot in my dream cause of laughing too hard."

Wraith does chuckle at that, "Is that your diabolical plan on taking the Apex Predator title?"

"Maybe." Mirage grinned back. He added milk, brown sugar, and vanilla essence to the pot as Lifeline and Wattson's instructions dictated, transferring it into a bowl and popping it into the refrigerator. “Wraith?”

“Hm?”

“Something happened to you. In my dream.” Leaning an arm against the counter, he half turned to her, “I dreamt we were back in King’s Canyon when the Repulsor broke. Everyone had to work together to get to the Airbase. It was insane, honestly. Crypto was a complete jackass, Bangalore and Lifeline had this rivalry thing going on, Bloodhound held six prowlers with no bullets just an axe, and Caustic helped defend the drop ship._”_

“Caustic _helped_?”

“Yeah, I know. Should’ve been a warning sign I was dreaming. But before we could leave the island...." He exhaled evenly, "I didn’t see you but—but I heard about it. From Gibraltar and Lifeline. They said your heart stopped.”

"Oh, so I died."

"_Wow_." He drew his head back, apalled at her nonchalance. "That's it? That's all the fucks I get from you?"

Wraith set down the paper sack of flour, keeping her hands behind as she walked towards him. "People die all the time Mirage, it's not a big deal."

"Well, it's a big deal to me." He couldn't help the sudden surge of irritation. "Everything felt and looked real. I thought you would underst—"

She threw a handful of flour at him.

Mirage blinked in surprise, lips slowly falling open. It took him another second before he could comprehend that yeah, Wraith just did _that_. A glance at the silverware to his side showed half of his face covered in white, most importantly—

"My hair!"

Wraith snickered, "Really? That's the first thing you think about?"

He narrowed her eyes at her and she quickly grabbed the ammunition off the table, holding the sack at her side even spilling some of it off her sweater and pants. "I don't think so."

But Mirage has always been a resourceful man.

Instead, he reached for the sink and pulled the wash hose off its place, pointing it at her with a hand on the switch. A cheshire grin broke slowly across his face at Wraith's look of realization.

"Don't you dare!"

"No, no, you see this?" He gestured to the powder covering his hair. "This is a declara—dec—delcra—_war_. This means war."

"Hah. I don't know, grey hair looks good on you," She grinned, "old man."

"W-what did you just call—oh game on." He sprayed on her with a jerk on the knob, but she's expecting it, diving quickly off view.

He grabbed an empty pot and left the faucet open, just as Wraith peeked from the other side of the table throwing another handful. He dodges barely, snatching the cocoa powder from the corner of her eye.

"We can still drink that." She called from the other side of the table.

He turned off the faucet and placed the bowl on the middle, discreetly returning the cocoa because yeah he does want some hot chocolate later. "Should've thought of that before ruining my hair, sweetheart."

"Will saying sorry make everything better?"

"Let me think," He hummed theatrically, "Nah."

With a flick of his fingers he toppled the bowl over, water quickly spilling to the other side—

"Hey!" Wraith yelped, jumping away.

It's the perfect opportunity to make a break for the flour, when all of a sudden Wraith _slipped_. He automatically reached out to help her and he would have laughed about it, had she not used his momentum against him and brought him with her to the floor.

They landed with a grunt from Wraith, bearing the brunt of the force.

"Shit, are you okay?"

Her lids cracked open, bright ocean eyes peeking mischievously. She suddenly ran her hands on his cheeks, hair, grinning wolfishly when his eyes widened in realization.

"You sneaky little—"

Instead of bothering to push her away, he reached for the sack she had dropped, dipping both his hands and smearing the same streak across her face, neck, hair and—and she was _laughing_, bright and warm and carefree, the sound of it making home in his chest. It made him stop to listen because _holy shit _he caused that. He's the reason for that.

Wraith caught his wrist and pinned it to his other side, locking a leg around her own and pushed him off with her core strength until she's the one on top, watching him mutter a soft, "Unf."

Another chuckle escaped her lip, "Sorry."

"Are you?"

"No."

He chuckled at her answer, then at her appearance, dark sweater now completely smudged, "I see grey hair looks good on you too, grandma."

Wraith slid off him and rolled her eyes, taking the half undone bun off, letting her hair cascade down her back on soft wave.

Mirage can only stare.

She’s beautiful—he’s always known that—and while he thought she’s just as breath taking with her hair neatly pinned as it is curling wildly around her powdered face, there’s just something so intimate about her allowing him this.

_He wanted to kiss her_

And though he knows she returns the feelings to an extent, he has no idea if quite they’re there yet, so he mustered the urge and let it go.

“You’re staring again.” She said.

The only thing he could say in reply is, “I can’t help it.”

* * *

Unfortunately, starting a play fight meant they had more to clean than what was originally intended. It was okay with him though, each moment with her made the dream feel farther and farther away.

Wraith washed everything, insisting it was her project to begin with. He took it upon himself to make hot chocolate, mixing cocoa with the left over fudge on the pot. The cake had been left to cool, and when they finished cleaning, she immediately dove into filling and decorating it.

“You never asked me anything about this.”

Mirage’s lips curved at the effort of making the surface as even as possible, topping the pastry with chocolate shreds and returning it to the refrigerator. “Figured you’d tell me when you’re ready.”

She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, deep in thought for a moment before finally saying, “You can come with me, if you want?”

* * *

Within two hours, they were leaving the Housing Facility on Talos for a city miles away. He hasn’t been there—he hasn’t really explored Talos yet and it was a him problem if he was honest—but it was still a pleasant change of scenery.

The place was called Old Dawn, so it wasn’t a surprised the general architecture of it was similar to the Old Capitol in New Dawn, only far weathered. Some establishments were recently built, a but the feel of the street was a lot like Sol, so yeah, he’d like to come back another time.

Another five minutes and they’ve entered a subdivision, taking several turns until they’re pulling up on the drive way of a middle class home. Mirage thought he should’ve figured out then, from the semi formal clothes they we were wearing to the other vehicles parked and the joyous squeals from the inside.

“Auntie Ren!” The front door opened to a kid not older than eight, throwing his arms around Wraith’s legs smiling wide. “You came.”

“Course I did.” She bent down to his level and tapped his nose, “I promised.”

Mirage was…pretty much getting sucker punched with all of these unfolding, suddenly unsure if he really did wake up from earlier or all of this is just an elaborate dream. An older woman huffed a laugh from the inside of the home.

“Come on in, dear.” And then she looked at him, “You must be Elliott Witt.”

He turned back to Wraith, now red on the face murmuring, “I’ll tell you more later.”

The later didn’t come until about four hours, after lunch and desserts and genuine questions about who he is. Questions never even touched upon during Pre and After Games interview. Wraith’s lounged next to him, watching above a dozen of kids cheering for birthday party games.

“Sorry if this is making you uncomfortable. I know I should've told you earlier.” She muttered quietly. “I sneaked into King’s Canyon before we left, made sure I didn’t leave anything...unchecked.”

“I take it you found something?”

“Data files about me. My family’s gone, they died in Typhon but I have relatives here from my Father’s side.” Wraith nodded, taking a sip off a carbonated drink, “I told them I can’t remember anything, they said they’re sorry they couldn’t help then, but they can help now.”

“That’s great right?” He straightened up, and she nodded. "So, Blasey, huh?"

"It's...Renee."

"What?"

"That's me.” Renee shrugged, “My real name. I'm Renee Blasey."

He smiled, "Well then, I’m Elliott Witt—wh—well, I mean, you already know that but yeah.”

"Nice to meet you, Elliott."

"And you, Renee."

They playfully shake hand but didn't let go, basking in the normalcy of this otherworldly life.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading :D


End file.
